


The One Where Sam Has An Eating Disorder

by SamFuckingWinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sibling Incest, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 12:22:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10490814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamFuckingWinchester/pseuds/SamFuckingWinchester
Summary: It starts because John says it has to.It escalates because Sam is in love with his brother.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm kind of proud of this one. I fucking suck at HTML though. Sorry.

It starts because John says it has to. 

Sam prefers his cardio this way, anyhow. Running is the perfect time to check out the town, especially if they’ve just moved. He takes back roads and side streets and gets lost on the trails by the canals that are just yards away from backyard fences in suburban neighborhoods, and by the time he arrives at the wealthier lots his mp3 player has run out of battery power and his stomach is growling so much that it distracts him from thinking about the people who live in those houses. Sam doesn’t have the energy to think about what their lives are like or what kind of cars they drive or what they shop for in the grocery store. He just has to make it back home. And that is a drug in itself. 

It continues because, well, nobody notices. 

With his father gone, Sam has no routine, and with no routine, Sam gets restless. He tries, though. He does all of his homework for school right on time and sets alarms for when he’s supposed to go running. Sometimes his brother comes, but usually Dean falls off after a mile or two. Cardio just isn’t his thing. After all of his consistent practice, Sam is fast as hell. He barley even listens to music anymore and when he does it’s loud, the bass thudding in his ear drums like his rapid heartbeat that he makes sure to keep pace with; the drums clashing and banging to drown out the sounds of cars on the road Sam’s sprinting on and the people on the sidewalks and the people he’s watched die and the _things_ he’s done. Sam doesn’t even understand what the singer is saying because they’re screaming the words, but he understands exactly what point they’re trying to make. 

It escalates because Sam is in love with his brother.

He only admits it to himself late at night or if he’s drunk, but he doesn’t drink much anymore because it’s hard to tell how many calories this particular brand of beer has and he doesn’t want Dean to catch him checking. Sam kind of wishes Dean would just go away. There’s an uncomfortable air between them that Sam attributes to a couple of possibilities. One: Dean is sick and tired of having Sam for a little brother. And Sam gets that, because he’s tired of being around too. There’s no guarantee that he’ll get into any of the colleges he’s applied for, though he’s been working so meticulously and _on schedule_ , and even if he does, what is he going to tell his father? What is he going to say to Dean? Two: Dean knows about Sam’s…preoccupation with running. Maybe he’s started to pick up on his brother’s refusal to eat anything that came from a box, or the way he sweats when he’s forced to change in front of Dean, or how Sam’s always fucking _running_. Either way, Sam is content to wither away into nothingness, just like the ghosts they hunt.

It derails because Sam loses control. 

Being away from Dean was easier for a while. Stanford made Sam feel normal in ways that he never imagined he could feel. There was a schedule, predictability, people, and best of all, an excuse for Sam to cast away all the feelings he had associated with running as simply “bad habits”. And they’d all but dissipated when he met Jessica. But the moment he recognized Dean in his apartment, Sam knew it was over. His brother brought trouble, but Sam figured that was okay. He was good at running from it.  
Sam’s heart gives out not that long into the search for John. In fact, it’s only shortly before Dean makes a rookie mistake by being electrocuted on what should have been an easy hunt.  
Dean doesn’t like to talk about it. He tries not to even picture the scene, of his baby brother crumpled on the ground, splayed out on the side of the road like fresh roadkill, the kind you can still identify because it hasn’t been dead long enough for the bones of the carcass to be picked clean by scavengers. And God, they'd have nothing to pull off his brother, who is already just bones under paper-thin skin. If Dean Winchester is being honest with himself, and he hardly ever is, he knows he should have talked to Sam. He watched this shitshow spiral out of control and he said nothing because…why? Because he didn’t want to hurt Sam’s feelings? Because he was so wrapped up in his own twisted wants that he was too busy to really pay attention to his brother? Dean had one job: keep Sammy safe. Of course that went down the tube. Just like every other damned thing Dean has ever been in charge of. He has to learn to take care of Sam differently now; be more gentle, watch more closely, listen better. He holds in every gagging noise he wants to make when the feeding tube needs to be adjusted. He resists the urge to trail his hardened fingers down the bones of his brother’s ribcage. Most of all, he fights the voice in his head that tells him to get up and _run_. Sam’s always been the one who was good at it, anyway. 

It gets better because Dean is there.

Sam doesn’t feel sexy with an NJ tube and he certainly doesn’t feel in control when he’s hooked up to wires and machines he doesn’t understand. And it takes a while for him not to be stubborn and attempt to pinch the tubing or try to pull it out (a mistake he only makes once). Dean is different, Sam decides. Like a lightbulb has gone off in his brother’s brain and now all of a sudden he can _see_. When he reaches out hesitantly to touch Sam’s hardened jaw, Sam doesn’t flinch. The contact makes him feel more alive than sound of the music, too loud in his ears. And when Dean’s trembling hand moves down to rest on Sam’s emaciated chest, he feels the rush of adrenaline in his veins that he was running towards, the high he was chasing that was always just out of reach. It’s better than anything he’s ever used to try to forget who he is. 

It ends because Sam wants it to. 

There’s more talking involved in recovery than Dean Winchester ever bargained for. He and Sam are looking for John, on the road so much there’s no time or money for Sam to see a real therapist, but sometimes they stop by for a free clinic session if the town has something like that. Mostly, Dean does his job: watching and listening. And it isn’t without its perils. There are days where Sam will not stop crying. And if he’s being honest with himself, which he hardly ever is, there are days where Dean struggles to hold himself together too. There are times where he’s had to charge into the shower stall, fully clothed, and drag his brother out from under the long-cold spray and beg him to eat something.  
They still run together. Dean knows he’s walking, or jogging, a dangerous line, but it’s an activity that makes Sam smile. At this point, Dean will do anything to see his brother smile again. There are other things Dean tries too; Sam grins when his brother kisses him behind the ear, or shoves his hands into the back pockets of Sam’s still too-big jeans while they walk together. They don’t get much farther than removing shirts, but Dean thinks there’s plenty of time to work on it, as long as he has his brother close by.  
And Sam is so tired of running.

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out my other Supernatural works! Much love,  
> -Jensen


End file.
